~ Thoughts on Freedom and The West

Tag Archives: gun control

This article has a veritable list of companies of which to be wary; look at them:

Smaller players largely have sidestepped scrutiny about their products or their financing because activists have mostly focused on pressuring big retailers and gun makers with publicly traded stock or debt held by mutual funds. Excluding the big three, there were 28 companies that made 10,000 or more rifles in 2016, up from 20 companies in 2011, according to ATF data.

“The number of manufacturers was shocking to me,” said Christopher Ailman, chief investment officer for the $219 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement system, which this fall started a new effort to press gun makers and retailers on safety.

Surging sales of assault-style rifles under the Obama administration paved the way for smaller gun makers to enter the market. Larger manufacturers have in recent years had trouble meeting a spike in demand for rifles like the semi-automatic AR-15, leaving room for Anderson and others, said Stefanie Zanders, chief operating officer of gun distributor Zanders Sporting Goods in Illinois.

“The ARs just took off, and some manufacturers couldn’t keep up,” she said in a telephone interview.

Overall, rifles accounted for 2.7 percent of the weapons used on U.S. murder victims in 2017, FBI data show. But assault-style rifles are at the center of America’s gun-policy debate because they have been used in deadly mass shootings, including last year’s sniper attack that killed 58 at a Las Vegas music festival.

No. Not the gun makers. Look at the banks, funds, and other meddling corporations, ready to squash the 2A and your other freedoms. It’s amusing that some of the biggest players, accustomed to heavy-handing larger manufacturers via their investment strategies, are at a total loss as to how to handle small, private firms.

Also, per stats I’ve used before, this piece shows (again) that ALL rifles account for a minuscule percentage of criminal activity – way behind bats, fists, and feet.

These would-be gun grabbing companies are anti-freedom and anti-American. Remember their names. (And there are plenty more).

Yes! Gun fans, we have, after too long a pause, another Second Amendment article. Today’s ramble was motivated by one of the most irresponsible and alarming comments heard, maybe ever, in the left’s long war on freedom in the New World. Today, we explore the hypothetical intersection of American gun enthusiasts and nuclear weapons. It’s an improbable discussion. Then again, we live in improbable times.

A while backI laid to rest (so I then thought) any concern over the “nuclear option” concerning private firearms ownership. Little did I know that the subject would charge back into the national discourse with deadly potential.

As ridiculous as it sounds, the highest level of gun control hysteria the commies and globos can mount is the utterly irrational fear that, given an unrestricted right to keep and bear arms, American citizens will resort to the ownership and use of nuclear weapons. Yes, really. I’ve actually encountered that grade-A brand of stupidity live and in person – on a college campus if you’ll believe it. I heard it again, via this video:

The federal government is set to reinstate its borrowing limit, and a new analysis indicates that it will be a record-high $22 trillion — and then, it won’t provide enough money to fund the government past summer.

The shocking number, however, is only slightly higher than the current actual debt of some $21 trillion.

The ceiling has been in suspension and the debt has grown under President Trump. It is set to be reinstated on March 2, 2019.

A new Bipartisan Policy Center estimate suggests that the new limit will be $22 trillion, assuming no action is taken by lawmakers before that time.

The BPC analysis said: “Treasury will be able to fully fund the government until at least mid-summer 2019 by using extraordinary measures, cash-on-hand, and incoming cash flow. But costs to taxpayers will start earlier from factors associated with reaching the debt limit such as higher interest rates on U.S. Treasury securities.”

Through mid-Summer, 2019… That’s with the GOP at the helm, BTW. Dems, preparing to raid Congress, are calling for – wait for it – more gun control!!!

Democrats say they will pass the most aggressive gun-control legislation in decades when they become the House majority in January, plans they renewed this week in the aftermath of a mass killing in a California bar.

Their efforts will be spurred by an incoming class of pro-gun-control lawmakers who scored big in Tuesday’s midterm elections, although any measure would likely meet stiff resistance in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Democrats ousted at least 15 House Republicans with “A” National Rifle Association ratings, while the candidates elected to replace them all scored an “F” NRA rating.

“This new majority is not going to be afraid of our shadow,” said Mike Thompson, a California Democrat who is chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. “We know that we’ve been elected to do a job, and we’re going to do it.”

More like doing a number than a job, really. So, with all the money flying away and the thugs coming for your gat … just relax with some happy social media to beat the blues. Oh, wait.

The link between the two has been talked about for years, but a causal connection had never been proven. For the first time, University of Pennsylvania research based on experimental data connects Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram use to decreased well-being. Psychologist Melissa G. Hunt published her findings in the December Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.

Terrified patrons hurled barstools through windows to escape or threw their bodies protectively on top of friends as a Marine combat veteran killed 12 people at a country music bar in an attack that added Thousand Oaks to the tragic roster of American cities traumatized by mass shootings.

Dressed all in black with his hood pulled up, the gunman apparently took his own life as scores of police converged on the Borderline Bar & Grill in Southern California.

The motive for the rampage late Wednesday night was under investigation.

The killer , Ian David Long, 28, was a former machine gunner and Afghanistan war veteran who was interviewed by police at his home last spring after an episode of agitated behavior that authorities were told might be post-traumatic stress disorder.

Kind number one: Constitutional gun control not applied. The Founders were rightly wary of a standing army. They were also adamantly against the idea of foreign adventures. When you have those things, then you have perpetual military conflict in far-flung places like Afghanistan. You get amped up young Marines with PTSD. When said men come home from war, they tend to bring bits of war home with them. If the Founders’s controls were allowed to work again, we’d see less of this.

Kind number two: predictable failure of positive gun control. The shooter used an extended magazine in his Glock 21, in violation of California law. If this sort of ban ever worked, then this shooting could not have happened.

Gavin Newsome, you dumbass, it’s not a gun culture; it’s a big government culture.

“Many civilians saved lives during attacks and, in an age of ‘lone-wolf terror’, the more trained civilians carrying arms, the higher the chances of thwarting attacks and minimising casualties,” Erdan said in a statement.

Under the new regulations, any Israeli who had extensive infantry combat training can apply for a gun licence.

Most Jewish Israelis must complete obligatory military service after they turn 18, but only a minority receive such training.

Police volunteers, medics and former military officers will also be eligible, the statement said.

Prior to the change, the main criterion for a permit — besides professions such as hunter or diamond merchant — was one’s place of residence.

Settlers or other Israelis working in the occupied West Bank tend to receive licences. It is common to see Israeli settlers in remote West Bank outposts openly carrying rifles.

Civilians saving lives. Why does that sound familiar?

They could try this in London if ever they tire of Khan, appeasement, and cultural suicide.

Gang-related fights are now a near-daily occurrence at Wirt, where a small group of suspected MS-13 members at the overwhelmingly Hispanic school in Prince George’s County throw gang signs, sell drugs, draw gang graffiti and aggressively recruit students recently arrived from Central America, according to more than two dozen teachers, parents and students. Most of those interviewed asked not to be identified for fear of losing their jobs or being targeted by MS-13.

Although administrators deny Wirt has a gang problem, the situation inside the aging, overcrowded building has left some teachers so afraid that they refuse to be alone with their students. Many said they had repeatedly reported incidents involving suspected gang members to administrators, only to be ignored — claims supported by documents obtained by The Washington Post.

“Teachers feel threatened but aren’t backed up. Students feel threatened but aren’t protected,” one educator said. “The school is a ticking time bomb.”

The gang’s presence at Wirt comes at a time when the Trump administration has declared war on MS-13, and communities throughout the country are confronting a surge in MS-13-related violence.

Nearly a dozen parents told The Post that they were worried about gang activity at the school, which is 10 miles from the White House. Many said they were intent on transferring their kids. Several said they were scared their children would be killed.

The blame may be a little misplaced, methinks. I looked into this story.

The problem at William Wirt Middle “School” is not:

A culture decayed to the point of collapse;

Incompatible immigration (can’t really call it “policy” anymore);

MS-13;

Any other gang;

Gang violence;

The brewing race war;

Guns or the NRA (Young Hogg would have blocked the local dairy aisle if that was it);

Rapes, drugs, or fights;

The moldy, leaky building;

The 8% math proficiency rate;

The 20% reading proficiency (better than Detroit!);

The total failure of a “school” that should be closed;

The failure of a “school” system that spends close to 50% more per student than the national average;

The total failure of the police; and

Most certainly not the failings of any particular individual students (civilized behavior is, like education, so yesterday).

The real problem, which I have identified following hours of research, is:

THE NIKE CORTEZ.

Who, police and the military aside, needs such a dangerous assault shoe with hi-capacity laces and “bump” soles? This is not the footwear the Founders had in mind. No hunter wears them. You’re 285,000 times more likely to be killed in your own shoes than to use them to outrun a perp. Sweden made the Cortez illegal in 1979.

Ban them!

#ShoeControl! #NotAnimals #PublicSkoolz

How many children? Nike.

*I wasn’t sure, am still not sure, if this one was education or 2A related. Maybe both. Is what it is.

“Bad guy gets a gun – shoots three at Lake Hefner restaurant – and the @NRA calls it a victory,” Watts groused on her Twitter feed. “In other high income countries, bad guys don’t get guns.People don’t get shot at restaurants. And armed strangers don’t have to risk their lives in the line of fire.”

If you get your news from the TeeVee, then know that a nut in OKC shot some innocent dinners and was then “limited” by a good guy with a gun. This being one of about 2.5 million such happy endings we can expect this year.

Back to the crazy woman – the grabbers love suggesting that, as America is the most heavily armed nation in the world, we thereby suffer the highest gun crime rate. The only trouble with the suggestion is the numbers. The US, with the most gun-toting private citizens on Earth, doesn’t even rank among the top 100 per capita gun murder nations. That truth thingy.

As for the “high income” BS, it’s just that. One has to wait but a day or two and definitive disproof will provide itself. Like this: from Belgium:

This is the moment Belgian special forces took down a suspected terrorist who had shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he shot and killed two policewomen and a 22-year-old civilian.

After carrying out three brutal murders this morning, the attacker took a female cleaner hostage in a nearby high school.

The footage shows him running out of the school with two guns blazing before he was shot dead in the street. Several officers were injured in the gun battle.

The man, who is understood to have been on a day release from a nearby prison, had approached the female officers at around 10.30am, slashed their throats and stabbed them several times from behind, before disarming them.

He has been named as Benjamin Herman, 36, an alleged Muslim convert who had been radicalised in prison.

The victims have been named as police officers Lucile Garcia, 45, and Soraya Belkacemi, 53, and 22-year-old Cyril Vangriecken, who was shot dead sitting in a parked car with his mother.

Aloha Snackbar! Prison radicalization! Per Perrin’s First Law, this guy wasn’t just known to the police in advance, he was out of jail on a day pass or something. Wow. The grabbers also say you’re 10,000,000 times more likely to be killed by a criminal with your own gun than to kill a criminal in self-defense. They say only the police (and military) need guns. They say gun control works. I say it’s a pattern of lying, probably indicative of amygdala deformity.

Anyway, to the high income lie. The US boasts a GDP-based per capita income of $55,200 (number 8 in the world). Belgium (that’s a little country in Europe) has a similar income, of $47,260 (No. 16). The US and Belgium are, compared to most of the world, high-income. Thus, according to the maniac mom, bad guys in Belgium DO NOT GET GUNS. Except that they obviously do, in spite of (or because of) those strict gun control laws. That, or else she might not consider this guy bad – he did Snackbar, after all.

The Belgium story, as bad as it was predictable, had a happy ending, similar to that in OKC. Here’s the last Snackbar!:

He hits hard on the mindless boilerplate calls for more gun control. No “AR-47” or “fully automatic assault clips” to blame here. And Crazy Uncle Joe Biden did tell everyone to get a shotgun… Anyone called for #pressurecookercontrol or #pipecontrol? No.

He notes the media lies about “a school shooting every week” and dismantles accordingly. BTW, according to the CDC, while you watched his video, about 72 lives were saved in the US by guns.

He notes something else I had noticed: the MSM communists keep talking about the iron cross pin but stay conspicuously silent about their paraphernalia (hammer and sickle, Baphomet, etc.). No one, that I’m aware of, has mentioned the LGBT+ rainbow heart pin this overweight, smelly, atheist loser was sporting. Interesting.

This kind of examination is unheard of in the media, radical if you will. Stefan’s solution is radical too: charging the parents. Something to consider if one can get away from blaming the NRA.

My solution is even more radical. It also addresses societal problems beyond the violence. If you want to abolish school shootings, then abolish the schools. Abolish. Public. Schools. Or convert them to something that works, something decentralized. Homeschoolers do not have these problems at all. And they don’t suffer the embarrassing statistics I mentioned yesterday: a 92% graduation rate with only 39% proficiency in English and 28% proficiency in math (at the subject TX school, which is about the US average).

I’m probably going to cover this in a video asap. For now, this is the best I’ve seen. All things to think about, if you’re into thinking.

It’s not just gun violence, Pocahontas. The Greek-surnamed suspect allegedly utilized pipe bombs too. If these vultures want to stop bomb violence, then they should outlaw bombs. May I suggest some language to cover what could be considered a bomb:

The term “destructive device” means (1) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas (A) bomb, (B) grenade, (C) rocket having a propellent charge of more than four ounces, (D) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce, (E) mine, or (F) similar device; (2) any type of weapon by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, the barrel or barrels of which have a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter, except a shotgun or shotgun shell which the Secretary finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes; and (3) any combination of parts either designed or intended for use in converting any device into a destructive device as defined in subparagraphs (1) and (2) and from which a destructive device may be readily assembled. The term “destructive device” shall not include any device which is neither designed nor redesigned for use as a weapon; any device, although originally designed for use as a weapon, which is redesigned for use as a signaling, pyrotechnic, line throwing, safety, or similar device; surplus ordnance sold, loaned, or given by the Secretary of the Army pursuant to the provisions of section 4684(2), 4685, or 4686 of title 10 of the United States Code; or any other device which the Secretary finds is not likely to be used as a weapon, or is an antique or is a rifle which the owner intends to use solely for sporting purposes.